NCJ Number
119008
Date Published
1988
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This chapter reviews the literature on the institutionalization and transformation of new religious movements (NRM's) over time.
Abstract
The development of NRM's over time apparently entails marked goal displacement. The economic or financial dimension of NRM's increasingly seems to become significant as a stimulus determining the direction of movement evolution. A recent study of American communes reports that the communal period of many 19th century utopian social experiments was short, but the movements sometimes persisted as corporations pursuing economic rationality (Erasmus, 1977). The competitive capitalist context of the American sociocultural environment may facilitate goal displacement in a direction of economic rationality. Certain difficulties may arise to impede the commercialization of NRM's; e.g., the proclivity of authoritarian religious leadership to centralize, closely supervise, and drain businesses may demoralize local adherents, whose support and involvement are essential to the creation and maintenance of dynamic enterprises. Another difficulty pertains to the advantages of maintaining a "religious" designation to safeguard tax privileges. The commercial and financial diversification of NRM's is implicated in their continually shifting and elaborated organizational structures as well as attempts to conceal this structure.